Claud watched as the father and daughter left the house, and then looked down at his empty plate. A part of him felt cold, and he turned to look at Lily, who had a small smile on her face.
He wasn’t the only one who had deeper thoughts when he saw someone’s family, it would seem. Taking in her breathtaking appearance, he approached Lily and hugged her gently, pulling her into his embrace in a bid to transfer some of his warmth over.
“What’s wrong?” Lily asked.
“No. Nothing.” Claud buried his face in her chest for a moment. “Just thinking about myself. Risti better treat her dad well.”
A small hand patted her head. “Yeah.”
Claud separated himself from Lily after ten seconds. Lily’s expression was much better now, like how he himself felt. It was an old wound that the two of them shared, but at least both of them had each other for support now.
“How nice,” Lily murmured. “If we have children, I’ll definitely play the role of the embarrassing mum. That’ll be fun.”
“Embarrassing? I think it’s adorable. Look at Risti’s nickname. Ris-Ris!” Claud clapped his hands. “What an adorable nickname! We should use that more often if given the chance. It’s such a lovely nickname, don’t you think?”
“She’s going to cry if you do that, but it’s adorable,” Lily replied. “Anyway, there’s still some soup. What do we do?”
“I’ll feed you with more lifestones first, and then we can have soup in the afternoon,” Claud replied.
“Can we not? Please?” Lily’s eyes grew nice and round, and Claud felt his heart throb once.
“Fine…just for today.” Claud played with her hair gently. “I suppose we should just stroll around town or something, then. I’ve always wanted to see the interior of the Moonlit camp here anyway.”
Lily livened up immediately. “Let’s go, then!”
The two of them dressed up slightly, and then left the house. Claud had also brought the three little fellows with him, since they had been meeping about their boredom for some time. For one, he understood where they were coming from, and more importantly, if Risti really led the others back to his home, they would monopolise the little fellows.
He shook his head, and then turned his attention to something more important. Checking the Looped Encryptor, he turned to Lily and held her hand. “Right, when that approaches, the two of us should find an excuse and leave for a while. I don’t know how the A-Thing will work, but if I vanish, it’s going to be a dead giveaway.”
Lily nodded. “I was thinking about that too, now that the others are thinking of bunking down at our house. I’m not sure if the Moons will call them back, but if they don’t, we’ll need to leave for a while. What excuse do you have in mind?”
“That’s one of the problems, yes,” Claud replied. “We’ve already used honeymoon, so that’s a no-go.”
The two of them thought for a while as they walked down the small street, before Lily made a happy noise. “Why not use noblesse oblige as a reason? We do have identities as knights. We can just flub up a reason and then leave.”
“Hmm. How about investigating a crime in Lacuna?” Claud suggested. “As knights who have been summoned. Are there any procedures or things like that? We could write up some fake letters and mail them to us.”
“I’ve seen a few summoning letters before,” Lily replied. “Leave them to me! I’m a professional at making things and making things up!”
“There’s a difference between both phrases, though,” Claud pointed out. “But okay. Anyway, where are the Moonlit soldiers? Odd. Usually, they’re already patrolling the streets.”
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He looked around. The Moonlit soldiers were ubiquitous — they could be seen anywhere in Monsville. Yet, for some reason, he couldn’t even see a single one right now, as if they had all decided to pack up and go home. He wasn’t the only one who had noticed the oddity either — there were a lot of people roaming the streets and looking for them.
Before long, Claud and Lily were standing in front of a small camp. The Moonlit camp itself was outside Monsville, and had been peppered with tents.
The fenced-off area was still peppered with tents, but for some reason, all the Moonlit soldiers had vanished. At this distance, Claud couldn’t tell if they had all just packed up and left the tents behind, but it was clear that everyone that had been in this camp had vanished entirely.
“Did they give up on recruiting?” Claud wondered out loud.
“Maybe they completed their recruitment, so they left,” Lily suggested. “Or maybe, you know…”
She winked at Claud, and he rolled his eyes. There was, as Lily implied, a high chance that his actions of taking their vault’s treasures had sent them packing. On one hand, they no longer had the resources to entice people with, and on the other hand, his actions were proof that there was probably someone formidable enough to rob a vault in broad daylight.
The latter was possible with the right skills, but no one who had been burglarised once would want to be targeted again.
In other words, there was a chance that Claud had accidentally scared away the recruiting Moonlit soldiers here. They had, however, recruited quite a few people anyway, so they were probably cutting their losses or something.
“Whoops, I suppose.” Claud rubbed his nose. “What a shame. I was hoping to hear some intelligence or at least to chat with them. Still, it’s best if we investigate further. While your implied theory makes sense, if they really fled due to that…I don’t think that’s the actual cause. It feels too delayed.”
“Delayed, huh?”
With those words, Lily and Claud ventured into the empty camp. A few others, who had been standing around the camp, seemed to gain some courage from their actions and followed suit.
“Odd.” Claud frowned. Now that he was past the entrance and had a direct view of the place, he couldn’t help but think that something had gone wrong. There were a lot of utensils lying around.
“It feels like they vanished while preparing their dinner or something,” Lily muttered. “Look! There’s a pot that has black sludge inside. It’s the type you see when soup is boiled to the point of evaporation. And there are a lot of random utensils on the floor for some reason.”
As Lily continued to point out more and more issues, Claud couldn’t help but think that her guess had a lot of merit. Rather than packing up and leaving, it felt like the entire contingent here had completely vanished.
“That’s…scary.” Claud looked around. “And the new recruits? What happened to them? Did they leave for the base camp immediately? Or did they vanish with the Moonlit soldiers?”
“Before we do anything else, we should retreat first. This is not something we should be sticking our noses into,” Lily warned. “Baronet Mons is definitely going to conduct an investigation into this. We might be implicated if we stay any longer.”
“…Yeah.” Claud took a deep breath. “Let’s beat it first. We’ll…head to the tavern first. If there’s any news, it’ll be the first place to find out.”
The two of them swiftly retreated as more curious people entered the camp cautiously. Claud was interested in finding out what they thought, but he was even more interested in ensuring that the two of them wouldn’t be affected by any issues whatsoever.
When did the Moonlit soldiers here vanish? And how did they vanish collectively? Claud was certain that there were always a few patrols here and there within the city itself. Even if the inhabitants of the camp vanished, these patrols should have remained, right?
He shared his doubts with Lily, who nodded thoughtfully. Neither of them could come up with a suitable explanation, but it was also possible that they had vanished while they were preparing to leave. Claud had spotted a few wagons that had been loaded, but again, the evidence was so inconclusive that neither of them could decisively tell what had happened.
In silence, the two of them made their way to the tavern, which was once again full. Judging by the number of people who only had drinks on their table, it was clear that they were waiting for news, rather than legitimately hungry, and the duo joined the group of news-awaiting customers.
The middle-aged man glanced at them as they picked up their drinks. “You guys here regarding the missing Moonlit soldiers?”
Claud nodded. “We went to check their camp too. It’s…like they all vanished halfway through a meal or something.”
A few heads turned to them, and the bartender made a noise. “Odd.”
“Isn’t it?” Claud agreed, before sliding a few bronze coins over. Mister Candle took half of them, and then sent half of them back to him.
“On the house,” Mister Candle replied.
Claud nodded immediately. “Thanks, Mister Candle.”
“Take a seat, then. The Baron actually left to investigate around ten minutes ago. We might get some news soon…”